Human-Animal Hybrid Sculpture Will Probably Weird You Out

The grotesque beauty of humans and other animals has long been a central theme of Australian artist Patricia Piccinini’s work. For The Carrier, a piece currently on display as part of Haunch of Venison’s “How to Tell the Future From the Past” exhibition, lies somewhere between the realms of human, ape, and alien.

“This exhibition examines the work of five artists who present the trajectory of humanity not as a refinement but as an endless return to a base nature,” goes the gallery’s writeup of the exhibition, and The Carrier goes right along with that description, envisioning a Wellsian future in which humanoid creatures service the weak. And it’s pretty fucking creepy, too.

“How to Tell the Future from the Past,” Various Artists, Jan 17 – March 2, Haunch of Venison, NYC